Sequestration of carbon dioxide from gaseous waste streams has become a pressing issue for the scientific and global community in light of the predicted detrimental effects of anthropogenic CO2 production. Recently, several approaches toward this goal have emerged using metal organic frameworks (MOFs) derived from petrochemical sources. MOFs, also known as coordination polymers or coordination networks, are typically composed of a metal center coordinated to organic linkers to form highly-porous and well-defined crystalline structures that often have much higher surface areas compared to the conventional activated carbon and zeolites. Free hydroxyl and amine residues are known to react with carbon dioxide to form carbonic acids and carbamic acids, respectively. These functionalities have been added to MOFs by rational design of structures. While these advances are noteworthy in their incremental storage capacity, they are generally synthesized from environmentally malevolent materials. Thus, there remains a need to develop functional materials from simple components that are renewable and biocompatible.